By Andria Simmons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department and a deputy, ruling that the deputy’s killing of a man was justifiable.
The deputy shot the man when the man tried to run over him with a vehicle, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. dismissed the case before it could go to trial, ruling on summary judgment. The court said “it is constitutionally reasonable for an officer to use deadly force when he has probable cause to believe his own life is in peril.”
The lawsuit involved the Feb. 7, 2005, shooting death of Steven Wayne Pearce by Sgt. Greg Chapel, who was a deputy at the time. It was filed by Pearce’s parents, George and Valerie Pearce.
Two deputies were serving arrest warrants in an area of Buford known for its drug activity when they spotted a suspicious vehicle driven by Pearce.
When the deputies tried to pull him over, Pearce allegedly attempted to run over Chapel with his vehicle. Chapel fired a shot into the car, striking and killing 36-year-old Pearce.
“The deputy did what he was trained to do and what he had to do,” Sheriff Butch Conway said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday. “He performed his duties exactly as he should have and, most importantly, he was able to come home to his family because of the actions he took that night.”
The court also awarded the county legal expenses, which Conway says amount to $9,312.
Chapel and another deputy who was with him that night, Mark Anthony Chriss, had already been cleared of wrongdoing in a criminal investigation and an internal affairs investigation. Such investigations are routine in all police-involved shootings, said Stacey Bourbonnais, spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department.
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution